Page 48 of True Honey
Silas stared across the ballroom, his eyes a cold, distant gray. I could read every thought flickering across his face. I had screwed that up back there and ruined his chances of making this work. I would be the sole reason that he never got his hands on those shares. All because I couldn’t play nice with some drunk old men for more than ten minutes.
“I’m sorry,” I said after a prolonged beat of silence. The anxiety was all consuming and spread across my chest like wildfire, unstoppable and burning every logical thought in its path.
“What?” He looked down at me finally, his brows crumpling together and his jaw tensing with a visible tick. His gaze lingered and I couldn’t tell if he was angry or not but it caused my heart to race.
“I could have handled that—”
“We’re leaving,” he said, his hand wrapping around my arm gently.
“We just got here, Silas.” I looked up at him, begging for him to clarify what the hell was going on inside of his head. He couldn’t be serious? We hadn’t even eaten and there had to be more people he needed to introduce me to for the sake of the will.
“And I’m done,” Silas sighed and moved around me to shuffle me out the door. We took the stairs back to the street but instead of getting the valet to bring his bike around Silas called for one of the drivers that was parked in the street. “Go home, Drew.”
Silas opened the door for me and waited for me to get inside.
“I thought you were coming?” I asked, holding on to the window instead of getting into the car.
“I needed to get you out here, Ihaveto stay.”
To clean up the mess I made, no doubt.I nodded, not saying anything else before I climbed in and let him shut the door behind me. I had screwed everything up for him and now he was going to have to manage the fallout and come to terms with the fact that he might never get what he wanted.
The car ride home was silent. I wanted to text him, to ask if I’d done something to deserve that cold goodbye, but I already knew. I knew what I had done and there wasn’t anything I could say to fix the problem. I shouldn’t have sleptwith him but it hadn’t dawned on me until after I had found my head and come down from the high that Silas’s touch seemed to bring me.
Sleeping together had created a hundred more problems.
I’d been an idiot about all of this.
The house was empty when I got back, August nowhere to be found but there was a note on the counter about going to Hilly’s for dinner because Dean burnt whatever he was making. I was grateful that the apartment was empty, all I wanted to do was cry.
But like a bad omen my phone vibrated in my purse. I set it on the counter, pulling it out and answering the call before I even registered the area code.Shit.
“Drew?” A voice came from the other end. “Don’t hang up on me Drew, I can hear you breathing!”
“Bradley,” I acknowledged him. “What do you want?”
“I want to know why my son just sent me to voicemail!” Bradley’s voice was loud and dominating as I tried to collect my thoughts.
“He’s thirteen, Bradley. He isn’t always going to answer when you call, he’s not a dog.” I tried to curb my tone to avoid a fight.
“Don’t patronize me, Drew. What lies have you been spewing at him? The last time we talked he wouldn’t even give me your address for birthday presents,” Bradley snapped.
That’s because there was no address…I tried to stifle the groan that rumbled deep in my chest.
“Do you have a pen?” I asked him slowly, as I turned to look for the stack of mail that Silas left laying around. On the top was a letter addressed to him from the prison and it made me sad staring at it, knowing it probably came from his father.
“You’re in Rhode Island?” He hissed the moment I gave him the zip code.
“There was a job opportunity, so I took it,” I said.
“A job opportunity? Are you teaching again?” He asked me.
“I’m working with a college baseball team,” I said instead, deflecting the fact that I worked under the lowest paid person in the building as her assistant.
“Right,” Bradley only found that unbelievable because never once had I shown interest in sports and I still wouldn’t, but the pay was good and Silas…
I inhaled slowly, almost grateful for the bombarding from Bradley giving me time to forget how badly tonight went. The look on Silas’s face when he sent me away.
“You have the address, is there something else you wanted?” I asked Bradley to fill the silence.
